I didn't quite realize it until I received a bunch of e-mails from Jewish Obama partisans, but last night's debate was, in fact, the kishke debate. All of my correspondents made triumphant mention, in one form or another, of the "kishke question," the issue of whether, in his gut, President Obama actually cares about Israel and would spend significant political, and even military, capital, to defend it. One prominent Obama supporter wrote me to say simply this: "Yad Vashem! Sderot!" These two places, both mentioned by Obama, are, of course, touchstones for Jews: The first, the Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem, represents the continued will of the Jewish people to remember the 33 percent of world Jewry that was murdered in the Holocaust, and also represents the determination of the Jewish people to take charge of their own safety and security, through the vehicle of an independent, well-armed, state. The second is the Israeli town bordering Gaza that has suffered from a semi-constant barrage of rockets fired by Hamas, Palestine Islamic Jihad, and other groups, and that represents Israel's continued vulnerability to terrorism.

In last night's debate, Obama not only mentioned these two places, he delivered set pieces (set pieces we've heard before, to be sure) on Yad Vashem and Sderot, and on their meaning. If you're in the Obama camp, the explanation for these detours is easy: the President has Israel's best interests at heart, and his opposition to the Iranian nuclear program is motivated in large part by a desire to defend Israel from an existential threat. If you're in the Romney camp, your explanation is also easy: Obama's strategists realized they had to go on the offensive to cover-up the fact that Obama hasn't visited Israel once as President, and that he has a tense and unpleasant relationship with Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.

I think both of these lines of thought have elements of truth in them, and I would also say that Romney either felt no need to express understanding for Israel's dilemma, or wasn't prepared to express understanding for Israel's dilemma. This is not to say that Romney doesn't have warm feelings for Israel -- quite the opposite -- it is simply to note that Obama out-foxed him on the "I've got Israel's back" question, which is precisely what he had to do to quiet what for him is a distracting and potentially harmful sub-theme of this campaign.

And speaking of the kishke question, here is an excerpt of an interview I conducted more than four years ago with then-Senator Obama on the question of Israel's security:

JG: Go to the kishke question, the gut question: the idea that if Jews know that you love them, then you can say whatever you want about Israel, but if we don't know you -- Jim Baker, Zbigniew Brzezinski -- then everything is suspect. There seems to be in some quarters, in Florida and other places, a sense that you don't feel Jewish worry the way a senator from New York would feel it.

BO: I find that really interesting. I think the idea of Israel and the reality of Israel is one that I find important to me personally. Because it speaks to my history of being uprooted, it speaks to the African-American story of exodus, it describes the history of overcoming great odds and a courage and a commitment to carving out a democracy and prosperity in the midst of hardscrabble land. One of the things I loved about Israel when I went there is that the land itself is a metaphor for rebirth, for what's been accomplished. What I also love about Israel is the fact that people argue about these issues, and that they're asking themselves moral questions.

Sometimes I'm attacked in the press for maybe being too deliberative. My staff teases me sometimes about anguishing over moral questions. I think I learned that partly from Jewish thought, that your actions have consequences and that they matter and that we have moral imperatives. The point is, if you look at my writings and my history, my commitment to Israel and the Jewish people is more than skin-deep and it's more than political expediency. When it comes to the gut issue, I have such ardent defenders among my Jewish friends in Chicago. I don't think people have noticed how fiercely they defend me, and how central they are to my success, because they've interacted with me long enough to know that I've got it in my gut. During the Wright episode, they didn't flinch for a minute, because they know me and trust me, and they've seen me operate in difficult political situations.

The other irony in this whole process is that in my early political life in Chicago, one of the raps against me in the black community is that I was too close to the Jews. When I ran against Bobby Rush [for Congress], the perception was that I was Hyde Park, I'm University of Chicago, I've got all these Jewish friends. When I started organizing, the two fellow organizers in Chicago were Jews, and I was attacked for associating with them. So I've been in the foxhole with my Jewish friends, so when I find on the national level my commitment being questioned, it's curious.

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Writing used to be a solitary profession. How did it become so interminably social?

Whether we’re behind the podium or awaiting our turn, numbing our bottoms on the chill of metal foldout chairs or trying to work some life into our terror-stricken tongues, we introverts feel the pain of the public performance. This is because there are requirements to being a writer. Other than being a writer, I mean. Firstly, there’s the need to become part of the writing “community”, which compels every writer who craves self respect and success to attend community events, help to organize them, buzz over them, and—despite blitzed nerves and staggering bowels—present and perform at them. We get through it. We bully ourselves into it. We dose ourselves with beta blockers. We drink. We become our own worst enemies for a night of validation and participation.

Even when a dentist kills an adored lion, and everyone is furious, there’s loftier righteousness to be had.

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Most of the big names in futurism are men. What does that mean for the direction we’re all headed?

In the future, everyone’s going to have a robot assistant. That’s the story, at least. And as part of that long-running narrative, Facebook just launched its virtual assistant. They’re calling it Moneypenny—the secretary from the James Bond Films. Which means the symbol of our march forward, once again, ends up being a nod back. In this case, Moneypenny is a send-up to an age when Bond’s womanizing was a symbol of manliness and many women were, no matter what they wanted to be doing, secretaries.

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And if thy brother, a Hebrew man, or a Hebrew woman, be sold unto thee, and serve thee six years; then in the seventh year thou shalt let him go free from thee. And when thou sendest him out free from thee, thou shalt not let him go away empty: thou shalt furnish him liberally out of thy flock, and out of thy floor, and out of thy winepress: of that wherewith the LORD thy God hath blessed thee thou shalt give unto him. And thou shalt remember that thou wast a bondman in the land of Egypt, and the LORD thy God redeemed thee: therefore I command thee this thing today.

— Deuteronomy 15: 12–15

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The Wall Street Journal’s eyebrow-raising story of how the presidential candidate and her husband accepted cash from UBS without any regard for the appearance of impropriety that it created.

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The piece begins by detailing how Clinton helped the global bank.

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During the multi-country press tour for Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation, not even Jon Stewart has dared ask Tom Cruise about Scientology.

During the media blitz for Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation over the past two weeks, Tom Cruise has seemingly been everywhere. In London, he participated in a live interview at the British Film Institute with the presenter Alex Zane, the movie’s director, Christopher McQuarrie, and a handful of his fellow cast members. In New York, he faced off with Jimmy Fallon in a lip-sync battle on The Tonight Show and attended the Monday night premiere in Times Square. And, on Tuesday afternoon, the actor recorded an appearance on The Daily Show With Jon Stewart, where he discussed his exercise regimen, the importance of a healthy diet, and how he still has all his own hair at 53.

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This past March, in an up-and-coming neighborhood of Portland, Maine, a group of residents rented a warehouse and opened a tool-lending library. The idea was to give locals access to everyday but expensive garage, kitchen, and landscaping tools—such as chainsaws, lawnmowers, wheelbarrows, a giant cider press, and soap molds—to save unnecessary expense as well as clutter in closets and tool sheds.

The residents had been inspired by similar tool-lending libraries across the country—in Columbus, Ohio; in Seattle, Washington; in Portland, Oregon. The ethos made sense to the Mainers. “We all have day jobs working to make a more sustainable world,” says Hazel Onsrud, one of the Maine Tool Library’s founders, who works in renewable energy. “I do not want to buy all of that stuff.”

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